Achieving safer roads through more alert, healthier heavy vehicle drivers

Fatigue is a key risk to driver safety. Operating a heavy vehicle while fatigued will increase the risk of a crash and, over time, may impact the physical and mental wellbeing of the driver.

Alertness CRC research suggests that the most significant causes of driver fatigue in heavy vehicles are longer periods of work, night driving, and shift work (especially early shifts; night shifts; backward shift rotations; long shift sequences; and, shift sequences where a shorter break allows for less sleep). According to the National Transport Commission (NTC), fatigue is the leading cause of fatal single-vehicle accidents and a key factor in 9.8 per cent of major accidents.

On 15 April 2019, the NTC and the Alertness CRC released the results of a world-first study into heavy vehicle driver fatigue. The two-year study evaluated alertness monitoring technology by using it to evaluate the impact of work-rest scheduling features on alertness and drowsiness in order to inform fatigue policy. The research was supported by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, Monash University, Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Transport for New South Wales and the NTC.

The project findings validated the utility of alertness monitoring technology, confirming its ability to identify drowsiness-related driving impairment.

It also provided objective evidence regarding heavy vehicle driver schedule features that enable safe driving with high alertness levels and features that can lead to high levels of drowsiness.

The NTC is now undertaking a review of the Heavy Vehicle National Law that will result in performance-based and outcomes-focused regulation for improved road safety. Findings from this project have assisted the NTC in developing potential policy options to amend fatigue regulation, such as:

• Implementing the use of fatigue monitoring technology;
• Broadening the scope of fatigue-regulated heavy vehicles to capture all vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Mass greater than 4.5 tonne (i.e. all heavy vehicles as per the HVNL definition); and
• Applying fatigue management requirements to all drivers that are at higher risk of fatigue due to the nature of their work, such as those who have long hours on task, undertake night driving and those who have had inadequate sleep opportunity across an extended amount of time.

Follow the progress at: https://hvnlreview.ntc.gov.au/.